PeeWee Football Hat

I had a request from Joan on Ravelry to post my pattern for the little football hat. This is the one that I designed for the newborn babies at my local hospital. It's one of my favorite patterns and it seems to be a big hit with the parents. Also, I think it's one of the very few things I've knit that my husband has ever commented on. I think that's because I'm always knitting and he just stopped paying attention!

This is such a simple hat to knit. Even if you're not particularly comfortable with embroidery, you can still do it and have it come out great. I took lots of pictures to show you exactly how I make it. Remember that this hat is sized for a newborn. If you want to knit a larger version, you just have to increase your cast on by eight stitches. I use 64 stitches, so the next size would be 72, then 80 etc. Also keep in mind that if you do increase it, you'll need to lengthen it as well.

To begin, you'll need about 80 yards or 50 grams of a worsted weight yarn in brown. I use Plymouth Yarn's Jeannee. It's a cotton/acrylic blend that can be tossed in both the washer and dryer. It barely shrinks and it comes out even softer. You'll also need a small amount of white yarn for the stripes and the embroidery.

The gauge is 4.5 stitches to the inch and I use a U.S. Size 6 (4.00 mm) needle. You can use a 16" circular to begin, but then you'll have to switch to either a 32" circular for magic loop, or double pointed needles, to work the top of the hat.

Because the cast on can be a bit of a stretch around the circular needle to begin with, I like to knit the first row and then join it in the round. It's easy to sew up that one little stitch when you weave in the yarn tail.

Cast on 64 stitches, join in the round, place a marker for the beginning of the round, and knit 9 rounds. On round 10, knit into the back loop of each stitch. This helps to keep the brim in place and to keep it from rolling up. Knit another 3 rounds, but don't cut your yarn.

Knit 2 rounds in white.  Use a jogless join. (There are lots of videos on the web that show how to do this, if you don't know how.)  Cut yarn.

Knit 13 rounds in brown, don't cut yarn, just carry it up the inside.
Knit 2 rounds in white, cut yarn.
Knit 4 rounds in brown.

At this point count over 32 stitches and place a removable marker or a safety pin to mark the center of the hat.

Decrease for top.

Round 1: (Knit 6 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 2 and all even numbered rounds:  knit.
Round 3: (knit 5 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 5: (knit 5 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 7: (knit 5 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 9: (knit 4 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 11: (knit 3 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 13: (knit 2 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 15: (knit 1 sts., knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 17: (knit 2 together), repeat around to end.
Round 19: (knit 2 together), repeat around to end.

Cut yarn and run through remaining stitches and fasten off.  Tug on the top of the hat to shape it into a point.

At this point, carefully weave in all your loose ends, as it will make the embroidery much easier.

Embroidering the laces:

Cut a fairly long length of white yarn and attach it to the center of the hat and at the top of the first white stripe.

If you turn your hat over so the right side is facing you, you'll be able to see the "bars" between the center stitches. I put a needle under them just so you can see what I'm talking about.  It's these bars that we'll use to count when we do the embroidery.

Thread the white yarn with a tapestry needle.  If you don't have a tapestry needle, you can use a sharp one, but you'll want to do the embroidery with the blunt end!  Count two bars up from the white stripe to begin and bring your yarn up through the center and underneath two bars.

Loop your yarn under the needle.  Notice that you go back down into the same hole.  Gently pull your yarn to form the first loop. This is a basic "lazy daisy" stitch.

Now repeat the process for four more loops.  Each time, you want to move forward and pick up two bars.  You'll have a total of five loops.  At the end of the last loop, bring your needle down by moving forward by one bar.

To make the little cross bars, bring your needle up and over one stitch to the right and at the base of the top loop.

Bring it across the loops and go down one stitch to the left. Make sure you line this up so it's straight!

At this point, I like to take the yarn and tack it down inside and along the center line of loops. Then I weave down a bit until I come to the center of the line. Repeat the same bar.

And do the same for the third and final bar.

Weave the remaining end and Voila! One finished football hat!

I haven't posted the pattern on Ravelry and I'm debating whether or not I even want to put it up. There are so many patterns already for football hats. I wanted the rolled brim and, truthfully, I just didn't see one that was exactly what I wanted.

Just a reminder that this pattern and all my pictures are copyrighted.  I don't mind if you want to knit these for charity or for sale, as long as I've given credit.  You may not post the pattern on your own blog or other forms of media without my express permission.

I hope you enjoy making this for all the little gridiron fans! I turned off the comments on my blog as I was getting so much spam. If you need to contact me, you can always reach me on Ravelry!

Disclaimer:  The little pennants pictured in the first photo are in no way an indication of any personal team preference. Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm a die hard New England Patriots' fan. Go Pats!! ;o)

Tradition

Well, here it is, another birthday and time for a new pattern. I have to keep up my tradition of posting a new pattern every year on my birthday, now don't I? This pattern is in honor of my youngest grandson, Marty. He just loves baby chicks. Not the chickens they grow up to be, but the babies. He has his own little blog where he posts pictures of chicks and he has an imaginary pal, Cheepy. As part of his home schooling, he even writes stories about Cheepy's many adventures. With that in mind, I decided that Cheepy needed to be memorialized, if you will, in cloth.

Marty has decided that the Cheepy cloths are all his, so I had to use his favorite colors, yellow and orange, however, since he's long past the bib stage, I knit the bib in Apple Green.

I love the combination of colors. Very citrus like!

The pdf for the patterns are listed in the sidebar, or you can click here for the bib, or here for the cloth.

You might be interested to know that Cheepy has a grandmother named "Lain Cheepy". Whenever Cheepy goes to visit her, "she lets him play with her computer and he can eat anything that he wants!". I should add a disclaimer here that any similarities between Marty and his own grandmother are purely coincidental.

Neglectful

My poor neglected blog.  I'm sorry I've been absent for so long.  Several of you have contacted me on Ravelry out of concern and I appreciate that so much. Unfortunately, my family is going through a very rough patch right now that I'm not prepared to talk about.  Some people like to share everything, but when things are difficult, I tend to draw in.  Please don't give up on me just yet.  I promise that I will be back.

Changing Things Up!

You might remember that I did a blog post awhile ago showcasing a pretty cowl pattern that my pal, Tracy, designed. Well, she's been at it again and I agreed to test knit her new pattern as well, called Step Up. I had been wanting a long cowl that I could loop around my neck, and this was perfect.

I used some Malabrigo Silky Merino that I had lurking in my stash. I enjoyed knitting the cowl so much that I decided to take the stitch pattern and make some matching mitts out of the leftover yarn.

I used 40 stitches for the cast on and U.S. Size 6 needles. They came out a perfect size for my large hands!

If this wasn't enough, I began to think that this pattern would also make some neat socks. Mickey told me that I HAD to make him some new socks as his toes were sticking out of the pair that he was wearing! He told me that they "were kinda uncomfortable!". Gee, ya think?  I was planning on skipping out on sock knitting for awhile after I knit so many samples. Still, who can refuse a sweet eight year old?

I asked him what color he wanted and he told me he was "sorta" into orange! This is a special colorway that Jenny dyed just for me. She named it "Micah" after my grandson. I don't know if he was more thrilled with having a new pair of socks or having a color named for him! (I have to get him to stay still long enough to snap a picture with him actually wearing them!)

I think it's fun to take a pattern and change it up a bit. I also did the same thing with a couple of the baby hats that I knit for the hospital. I loved knitting the Honey Badger sock pattern and I thought it would also make a nice hat!

Perfect for springtime! When you knit this pattern from the bottom up, the little "bars" are under the eyelets. These hats only use 60 stitches and knit up really quickly.

I came across another hat that a fellow Raveler had knit out of the Cupcake Mittlets pattern. Sossidge was kind enough to post her hat and share her modifications. She used a dk weight for hers, but I used my usual worsted weight (Plymouth Yarn's Jeannee). She had a cast on of 80 stitches, while I only used 60!

The flower is knitted using a great tutorial called Knitted Flower Tutorial . I always have trouble trying to crochet a flower that looks decent, so this was a great find for me! Really easy with great results!

Now, are you ready to hear some disturbing news that I received from the hospital about my little hats? Apparently they were such huge hit, they started disappearing before they could be delivered to the new moms. I can't imagine what kind of person would take them, especially since they supposedly work in a caring environment. I wonder if they tell their recipients, "here's a hat I stole for you!".  In any event, there's now a new distribution system in place to protect them! Unbelievable!

A Sampler of Socks

If you don't like knitting socks, then you're not going to like this post.  As I've mentioned numerous times before, I'm a huge fan of Jenny Porter and her amazing dyed yarns.  What's even better is that Jenny and I have developed a friendship.  I'm sure the fact that I have a bin full of her yarns has nothing to do with it. (Well, maybe a little.)  In any event, Jenny is going to have a booth at the upcoming Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival which is going to be held on May 3 & 4.  Jenny was looking for someone to help her out with a few samples for her booth and I volunteered.  At first, I suggested sock samples that would also fit her granddaughter, but Jenny decided that she wanted to keep the samples just for the booth.  This made sense, so we decided, in that case, that she'd only need one sock to showcase a particular yarn.  One sock in a kid's size?  How great is that!  I also decided to use free sock patterns.

Sock #1:  Balin, 75% corriedale/ 25% nylon; Pattern:  Blueberry Waffles by Sandy Turner

Sock #2:  The Blues, 100% merino; Pattern:  Basic Cabled Socks by Brainylady

Sock #3:  Fruit Punch, 75% merino/ 25% nylon; Pattern:  Honey Badger by Irishgirlieknits

Sock #4:  Donkey Kong, 75% BFL/ 25% nylon; Pattern:  Jack Thermal by Sharon Bird

Sock #5:  Geode, 50% merino/ 50% silk; Pattern:  Farfalle Socks by Orinda5

Sock #6:  Timberline, 80% BFL/20% nylon; Pattern:  Colonel Mustard Socks by Erin L. Black

Sock #7:  Orange You Sweet, 75% BFL/25% nylon; Pattern:  Bowties are Cool by Mandie Harrington

Sock #8:  Cancun, 80% merino/ 10% nylon, 10% cashmere; Pattern:  Lacy Mock Cable Socks by Scarlettknits

Sock #9:  Fairy Dust, 80% merino/ 10% nylon; Pattern:  Swirling Confetti Socks by Jean Gifford

Sock #10:  Cray Cray, 75% merino/ 20% nylon/ 5% stellina; Pattern:  Socks for Mary Janes by Staci Perry

Sock #11:  Galaxy, 80% BFL/20% nylon; Pattern:  Thuja by Bobbie Ziegler

Sock #12:  Gettysburg Remembrance; 75% BFL / 25% nylon; Pattern:  Boxcar Willie Socks by Anne Podlesak

For all of the socks, I used a cast on of 48 stitches and I did a round toe.  They were so much fun to knit and it gave me a chance to try out some patterns that I wanted to knit.  As you can see, they're all easy patterns, but the goal was to showcase the yarns.

Jenny has an Etsy shop here, so you can check out her yarns for yourself.  She also has a group on Ravelry. We're going to do a shawl KAL beginning at the first of July, so you should definitely come and join in the fun!  If you're lucky enough to get to the Wool Festival, be sure to stop by her booth and say hello to my pet samples.  Tell Jenny I sent you!!

Springtime Bonnets

At last, the weather is actually starting to feel like Spring.  I haven't seen any buds on the trees, but the huge pile of snow in my backyard is almost gone.  At one point, it was almost six feet high! With the change of seasons, I turn my attention to knitting some springtime hats for our local hospital.  I know I've posted pictures before of some of them, but I thought I'd share my latest crop with you.

I thought these would be perfect for the little boys, but they'd also work for a girl.  Since I never know how many of each gender are arriving in a month, I try to make hats that would be suitable for both sexes.

I had a hard time finding a pattern with small, yet easy, bunny ears, so I came up with my own.  I don't like trying to sew a bunch of fiddly things.  This hat is really simple and easy.  My kind of project and perfect for when I'm trying to make a bunch.  Here it is in a blue version:

You may have seen another version that I posted on Ravelry.  This time I used another hat pattern and combined it with mine.

See how the rows look like little bunnies?  I love them.  The pattern is available for purchase on Ravelry and is called Marching Bunnies . It calls for chunky yarn, but you can adapt the stitch pattern fairly easily.  Of course, I think the hat would look cute just knit in a plain color too.

I also knit the chick hat in blue.

The only fiddly thing on this is the beak and it isn't bad.  Only a couple of stitches!

I've actually written up the patterns for both the chick and bunny hats.  I call the bunny hat "Hop, Hop" because that's what my little granddaughter calls bunnies whenever she sees one.  The bird is called "Cheeping Chick" after my youngest grandson.  He loves baby chicks and even has a blog by that name where he posts pictures and funny comments about chicks.

The bunny hat has the chart for the knitted bunny faces, but not the pattern for the marching bunnies.  As I said before, that was taken from another pattern.  If you want to make that version, then you'll have to buy her pattern.  The pdf for the bunny is here. The pdf for the baby chick is here.  I've also posted them in the sidebar under Miscellaneous patterns.

I almost forgot to tell you that the yarn I used is Plymouth's Jeannee Worsted.  This is a great cotton/acrylic yarn.  It can be machine washed and dried and looks great.  All of the hats I've posted here have been prewashed.  The yarn gets slightly softer and there's barely any shrinkage.  I love the cotton hats for the babies.  The hats are sized for a newborn.  The chick hat can easily be made larger by adding stitches in increments of eight, but the bunny hat would require a little more calculating if you're using the chart.  If you're knitting a plain hat, then you can also upsize it like the chick.

You can knit them for your own personal use or for charity, but not commercial purposes.  I hope you like them. 

No Fooling!

Today just happens to be the anniversary of my blog. I sure can pick the dates, can't I?  April Fool's Day. I started it six years ago on a whim and at the gentle prodding of my good pal, Kathy.  She had a blog that I just loved and I remember her telling me how much fun it would be to start one and how I could post my patterns.  I have to admit that I was more than a little skeptical.  Would anyone want to read it?  Would anyone like the patterns?  Now, here I am six years later. My statcounter shows that since I've started the blog, I've had 1,796,114 visits.  (that's not a typo, one million seven hundred thousand!!)  Not only that, but I actually have some followers!  547 of you.  I still have trouble wrapping my head around that especially since I don't feel that I'm very good at blogging.  My posts are far and few between.  I suspect that many of you are just here for the free patterns, since I hardly ever hear from anyone.  Every time I post a new pattern, I'm always anxious to hear how you like it, but sadly (for me), I'm left wondering without much feedback.  That is, of course, until I start seeing the projects popping up on Ravelry.  So I know that some of you do like them and that makes me happy! As I've said, I just do them for fun and I'm happy to share.

So, speaking of sharing, I've decided that in honor of my anniversary, I'm going to post the patterns that were originally published in the 2011 Dishcloth Calendar.  The rights were returned to me quite awhile ago and I've been debating what to do with them.  I could offer them for sale (Gasp!) but I've decided to just post them.  I've dusted them off and updated them a little and I've included a chart which the original publication didn't have.

First up is Belle, one of my favorites:

The pdf files are in the sidebar for all the patterns, or you can click here for the Belle bib and here for the Belle cloth.

Then there's Eleanor: 

The pdf for the bib is here or click here for the cloth.

Finally, here's Pete:

The pdf for the bib is here and you can click here for the cloth.

I can't believe that I designed all of these four years ago!  My friend, Denise, was such a huge help to me as she did most of the test knitting.  Here's one of her pictures:

Don't you just love that purple cow?

I hope you enjoy the patterns and thank you for sticking with me!  No fooling!

The Trouble with Gradients

Have you tried any of those new gradient yarns yet?  I had been wanting to, but I was waiting for the perfect project.  I was a little put off by the price of most of them, but I decided to knit my daughter-in-law, Emily, a long cowl for Christmas.  If anyone deserves a special gift, I believe that she does.  I went to the New England Fiber Festival last November and the one item that I didn't want to go home without was a skein of gradient yarn.  I knew that the shop Wandering Wool was going to be there and I already had my eye on her colorway called "Great Barrier Reef".

Emily's favorite color is that grassy, lime green.  You'll note that the yarn is shown wound two different ways. I had decided to use the blue to begin the cowl and end with the green so it would be outside and more visible.  I chose the Biscuit Cowl pattern.  It was simple with just a slight bit of lace.  I thought it wouldn't take me too long and I'd be able to finish it in plenty of time.

 I used stitch markers every few repeats, so if I messed up the pattern, I'd be able to catch it quickly.  Things were going along nicely, but I soon realized that I was going to be finished with the cowl long before I got to the lime green!!  That's the whole reason I chose the yarn!  This left me with a dilemma.  I knew there was no way to get another one knit in time for Christmas.  In the end, I decided that the only thing I could do was to rip it out and start over from the other end.

After waiting so long to use the yarn and knowing how expensive it was, I knew I'd never be happy with it as it was. I'm glad I started over, because I was able to use every bit of the green.

I didn't even miss the blue at the end this time!

So the lesson here is to PLAN AHEAD! Don't repeat my mistake!

It did end up being a Happy New Year's gift rather than Christmas, but I knew that Emily would understand. Besides, I didn't even tell her that she had another gift coming!  I do plan for some things and I wasn't going to put pressure on myself, if I decided that I just couldn't knit one more row of the pattern!

My husband bought me another skein of gradient yarn for Christmas in shades of blue.  You can bet I'll study it a long time before I decide to start with either pale blue or royal!!

Take a Gander

I certainly have taken my sweet time posting this pattern!  I'm not sure exactly why it's taken me so long, but I finally made myself just sit down and do it!!  This is another of the "new" squares that I designed for Ruthie's Farm blanket .  I think the only two I haven't posted yet are the cat and the dog.  In any event, I was happy to knit something out of a bright color.  What a long, miserable, snowy winter we've been having here in New England.

The bib is knitted out of Peaches & Creme in Peacock.

For the cloth, I used the same yarn only in Gold.

The pdf files are listed in the sidebar, as usual, or you can click here for the bib and here for the cloth.